Prosecutors say that Lima-Marin was aware of the clerical error and knew he wasn’t eligible for parole, but didn’t say anything.

“He took advantage of this mistake,” Rich Orman, the senior deputy district attorney for Colorado’s 1st Judicial District, told CBS 4. “In my opinion, the court has no choice but to make him serve the remainder of his sentence.”

Lima-Marin points to the life he led outside prison walls — openly, and in the same district in which he was prosecuted — as evidence that he didn’t know a mistake had been made.

“I would have never had a wife. I would have never had children,” he told Denver’s Fox 31. “I would have never bought a house. I would have never done any of those things. But I did those because you let me out.”

The station notes that Lima-Marin was first tried under the now-defunct chronic offender program — based on theft charges when he was a juvenile — which enabled prosecutors to impose longer sentences for the crimes. He was convicted of multiple counts of armed robbery, kidnapping (for moving employees from the front to the back of the store) and burglary.

“I acknowledge the fact I did something wrong,” he told Fox 31. “I take responsibility for the fact I did something wrong. But I also believe I completed the punishment, the just punishment for the crime.”

In addition to the appeal, his supporters have also started an online petition asking Colorado Attorney General John Suthers to release him.

If the efforts fail, Lima-Marin will be eligible for parole in 2054, when he’s 75 years old.

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